Reviews for Horse Heaven

The average rating for Horse Heaven based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-07-24 00:00:00 William Tew I'm not really sure how I feel about the book overall. It was excellent in many ways, but sort of pointless overall. It's a soap opera about horses & the people working with them on the track with a sort of beginning & a kind of end, but there was a lot of history & certainly life goes on after the book ends. The writing was good, engaging & yet there wasn't a single defined plot, so I got a bit lost at times. Toward the middle of the book, I almost gave it up due to characters musing & then it suddenly picked up again. I guess that was the biggest flaw, there was a very realistic unevenness to the story. Tons of crazy things happen, then life sort of drifts along & the cycle repeats. There are a lot of characters, both horse & human, but there is a pretty good list in the front. It might be worthwhile to make some extra notes. Some of the characters were tough for me to keep separated. For instance, two trainers, Farley & Dick were similar enough that I confused them on more than one occasion, although that didn't really hurt the story at all. Most stood out wonderfully like Justa Bob & Mr. T, super horse characters. I have enough experience to know that Smiley REALLY knows the business & her take on it, the way she describes the horses & the people, is fantastic. If you like watching any of the big flat races (e.g. the Kentucky Derby) & wonder what sort of life led up to & goes on after, I can't think of a better way to do it.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-03-15 00:00:00 Tiffaney Jones March 15 ~~ Review coming tomorrow. March 16 ~~ I gave this book four stars yesterday but while thinking over my reading experience before sitting to write this review I've dropped it down to three. The basic idea of the whole thing is compelling: follow the stories of certain Thoroughbred horses during their first three years of life. Will they turn out to be the horses they were expected to be? What kind of drama will surround them and their people? (Because there is always drama around a horse, even a backyard horse.) Of course I loved the descriptions of the horses, the sense of being at the racetrack, the feel this book gave me of being around the animals again, and I enjoy any book that does that. But. As other reviewers have mentioned, there is just too much here. Too many characters, too many shifts from one to the other, and along about page 400 or so I really just wanted the whole thing to be over. This was my second reading, but the first time through had been so long ago I could only really remember the horse Justa Bob, who was the most memorable this time through also. Will I ever read it again? Honestly, if I do, I will skim past big chunks and sprint to the finish line instead of plodding more or less patiently for the whole distance.